1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method for utilizing a distributed computing system. In particular, a system and method are disclosed for creating shortcuts to accessing resources in a distributed computing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is a vast computer network consisting of many smaller networks that span the world. A network provides a distributed communication system of computers that are interconnected by various electronic communication links and communication computer software protocols. Because of the Internet's distributed and open network architecture, it is possible to transfer data from one computer to any other computer worldwide. In 1991, the World-Wide-Web (WWW or Web) revolutionized the way information is managed and distributed.
Client side browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and/or Microsoft Internet Explorer provide graphical user interface (GUI) based client applications that implement the client side portion of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is designed to run primarily over a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection. One format for information transfer is to create documents using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML pages are made up of standard text as well as formatting codes that indicate how the page should be displayed. The client side browser reads these codes in order to display the page.
A web page may be static and require no variables to display information or link to other predetermined web pages. A web page is dynamic when arguments are passed which are either hidden in the web page or entered from a client browser to supply the necessary inputs displayed on the web page.
A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a compact string of characters for identifying an abstract or physical resource, and each name and addresses that refer to objects on the Internet may be reduced to a URI. One type of a URI is a uniform resource locator (URL), which is the address of a file accessible on the Internet. A URL contains the name of the protocol required to access the resource, a domain name, or an IP address that identifies a specific computer on the Internet, and a hierarchical description of a file location on the computer. In addition, the an optional ending of a URL may be a “?” followed by a query string having name/value pairs for parameters (e.g. “?size=small&quantity=3”) or a “#” followed by a fragment identifier indicating a particular position within the specified document.
The URI “http://www.example.com:80/index.html#appendix” is the concatenation of several components where “http:” is the scheme or protocol, “//www.example.com” is the fully-qualified domain name having “www” as the host of the domain name “example.com”, “:80” is the port connection for the HTTP server request, “index.html” is the filename located on the server, “#appendix” is the identifier to display a fragment of the HTML file called “index”. The URL “http://www.example.com” also retrieves an HTML file called “index.html” on an HTTP server called “www.example.com”. By default, when either a port or filename is omitted upon accessing an HTTP server via a URL, the client browser interprets the request by connecting via port 80, and retrieving the HTML file called “index.html”.
In the current search environment, a user can access a search engine, such as Google™ or Yahoo!™ and perform a search. However, each time the user wishes to access a search engine, the user must first navigate to the “home page” of that search engine, enter search terms into a form on that home page, submit that form, and then wait for the results. Similarly, a variety of other resources, such as WebMD™, MapQuest™, LocalLive™, the U.S. Patent Office web site, and the like, provide a variety of different kinds of information that can be located by navigating to a search page and entering search terms. (The term “resource” as used herein refers to any computer system that is accessible via a network and that provides information in response to the submission of search terms). Some of these resources, such as the U.S. Patent Office web site, contain a variety of different search pages, which are located several levels below the home page.
Where a user of one or more resources is an amateur or professional researcher, such as an inventor or a patent searcher, the need to constantly navigate to a search page for each resource can be time consuming and frustrating. It would be desirable to provide a system and a method that allows an information seeker to create macros that allow for the rapid searching of a resource without manually navigating a browser to the resources search page. It would be further desirable to allow the information seeker to search one or more additional resources without either re-entering the search terms or manually navigating to the search pages of the additional resources.
Attempts have been made to assist inexperienced users by allocating humans to answer users' questions via a variety of mechanisms including via e-mail, via information posted at websites, and via library reference desks that are connected to users via “chat” sessions. However, there are many limitations imposed by these and other offerings including having limited pools of “experts”, having latency in delivering results, having helpers who are not sufficiently knowledgeable to provide optimal results, etc.